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If the labor movement had actually been focused, for the last 40 years, on the kinds of deep organizing methods described in the cited pieces, the PRO Act would already be law. The law follows power. Capital has the power, and that's why the PRO Act is highly unlikely to become law. We can't manufacture a position of unity, strength, and power from the halls of congress because those institutions are not meant to be responsive to the needs of working people and are not filled with people sympathetic to the plight of the average American. The Senate is where popular momentum goes to die. 45-49 senators will all get to say how great the PRO Act would be, and then can blame Joe Manchin for killing it. No one will face any political repercussions, some will be rewarded for the bill's failure. The labor movement shares a political party with the bosses it faces at the bargaining table, and labor is becoming increasingly irrelevant in that political coalition. The answer does, in fact, lie in organizing.

The fact is that the American labor movement long ago decided it would take a path of conciliation with industry, rather than confrontation with the goal of eventually transcending the capitalist mode of production. That worked for a time, but the economic conditions that allowed workers to extract major concessions from industry during WWII and the post-war years are not coming back. And yes, capital may be more powerful today, but the union busting methods used today are actually much less oppressive and violent than what was happening at the turn of the 19th century, as you know. Mystifying the current regime of power only serves to reduce the confidence of workers and movement leaders in the ability of working class people to achieve solidarity with one another and organize for the common good.

I'm a labor lawyer and I would love for the PRO Act to become law, but we have to be honest that the unions we have, as institutions, are ill prepared for the fights necessary to solve the problems we face today.

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